Page 26 of Every Almost

Elena had the luck of the draw, having been appointed team lead the day before. She then spent three hours that night mapping all the contingencies on a borrowed datapad she'd borrowed from a crew member in her bunk squad, as hers was in repairs after using it to swat away a ferocious beast in their last simulation. Though she was given kudos for her quick thinking in her beast takedown, the technology department at the academy didn’t praise her quick thinking.

Reyna and Jere sat with her as she developed the plan for tomorrow's mission, with Reyna there to help point out flaws. Jere truly had no purpose being there as he knew his expertise in animals wouldn't help so much when it came to hostages, so just ate snacks. However, he did offer commentary occasionally that was, in his own words, invaluable.

On the day of the exercise, it began well. Elena's plan from the night before was clean and accounted for every variable that came their way.

That is, except the one no plan could have ever considered.

Jere himself and his love for animal welfare.

After fourteen minutes into the simulation, all was running smoothly with Elena directing their team through a corridor breach, Reyna covering the left flank. They were moving forward, continuing through the plans Elena had mapped, when Jere completely stopped moving.

"Rey," he said over comms, pulling Reyna from her task. "There's something in the ventilation shaft here."

Reyna rolled her eyes, even though Jere couldn't see it in her tactical suit. "It's a simulation, Jere. Everything in here is fake."

"Rey.That doesn't mean it's not there!"

"Whatever is in the ventilation shaft is not meant for this exercise. Leave it alone."

"Just because it's a simulated nesting creature does not mean it's not in distress."

Reyna actually stopped now, turning around to face Jere at his vantage point. "How in the hell do you know its in distress?"

"It's easy, Rey. The environmental parameters, the ones coming up in my suit, the ones for that shaft are completely wrong for any nesting species, particularly on this 'simulated' planet. The temperature in there alone would cause immediate respiratory failure in a real specimen."

"Jere," Elena said, her tone matching the one used for moments when her plans were about to be derailed by something completely unnecessary.

Like Jerel Nox'Thelan Carrothi's conscience.

"Stay on mission," Elena ordered.

"I can fix it. No problem whatsoever. I'll fix the ventilation settings, do my job as theanimal specialiston this simulated mission, and still make it in time for the extraction window. It'll only take me ninety seconds."

"You do NOT have ninety seconds," Reyna whisper-yelled.

"Fine then, eighty seconds."

"Jere—!"

But by the time Reyna finished saying his name, he was already gone. She watched his position indicator on her tactical display run sharply off course and then disappear into a simulated maintenance corridor that was absolutely not part of the mission. For all she knew, it would lead to a deadend altogether. So, instead, Reyna took the three seconds shedidn'thave to recalculate the left flank coverage Jere was meant to cover. She helped Elena redistribute the remaining team across both entry points, and informed her that the plan was salvageable, but only as long as they moved now and just pretended Jere didn't exist.

"I always knew it would come to this," Elena muttered.

"Pretending Jere doesn't exist?"

"No," Elena said with resignation. However, two seconds later, she came back on over Reyna's comms. "But, also yes." Reyna laughed quietly to herself as the extraction continued on without the distracted member of their trio.

Reyna and Elena completed the simulated mission with their cohort with only six seconds to spare. Moments later, Jere emerged from the same maintenance corridor he'd tucked away in, looking enormously pleased with himself. Going by his expression, Reyna knew that he had obviously adjusted thesimulatedventilation settings for asimulatedcreature in asimulatedshaft, and now appeared to consider this a truly meaningful accomplishment.

"The nesting parameters are corrected," he announced, confirming Reyna's suspicion. "She would have survived."

"She's not real, Jere," Reyna said.

"That's not the point, Rey."

"What is the point, then?"

"The point is that the simulation designers got the environmental specs wrong for a Korveth cliff-nester, and someone needed to say something. Those temperature tolerances were off by at least twelve degrees. It was sloppy work."